Thursday, November 21, 2013

In a deep gumtree valley
along a Hawkesbury River Road
messages come from within an
array of canny letterboxes.

The mailman knows that today
and every other day, on this side of the
mountain, his hands will guide
silent voices into several slots.

The mailboxes are fashioned at home as
personal monikers or simply with the letters
RMB. Others don helmets, lampshades,
roofs similar to their larger home above.
There's a cat carrier for the busy spendthrift.

Deeper into the leafy avenue,
as a honed log waits on a stump,
an assortment of makeshift tin stands as sentry
to railway lanterns, a safe with a lock fastened
as a hubris for a failed combination.

How amazing to find oil cans, drawers, and
outboard motors re-shaped as tender entries
for bills, postcards, and brochures; junk
hanging as tongues over a "no trash" sign.

With the fresh river air breezing the morning,
birds flash up from wildflowers and boxes, not like
the crowded pigeons of Rome, but more like hungry
crows awaiting news of food and the weather.

The Joyous Lake

Par écrit

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Helen Hagemann's first literary collection, Evangelyne & other poems, was published by the Australian Poetry Centre in their New Poets Series 2009. 'of Arc & Shadow' is her second full collection published by Sunline Press. She has two e-books, The Joyous Lake & Par écrit: poetry of the feminine @ http://issuu.com/evangelyne/​​docs/joyous_lake/